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Episode B36 - The Black Stone

Synopsis:Elagabalus
spearheads a religious revolution in Rome, but his unpopular rule drives Julia
Maesa to enact a back-up plan.

“To this temple, as to the common center of religious
worship, the Imperial fanatic attempted to remove the Ancilia, the Palladium,
and all the sacred pledges of the faith of Numa.A crowd of inferior deities attended in
various stations the majesty of the god of Emesa; but his court was still
imperfect, till a female of distinguished rank was admitted to his bed.Pallas had been first chosen for his consort;
but as it was dreaded lest her warlike terrors might affront the soft delicacy
of a Syrian deity, the Moon, adorned by the Africans under the name of Astarte,
was deemed a more suitable companion for the Sun.” – Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, Volume 1, Chapter 6

“To the tumultuous throng which crowded under these
porticoes the solitude of death has succeeded.The silence of the tomb is substituted for the hum of polite places.” –
Count C.F.C deVolney, The Ruins, or
Meditations on the Revolutions of Empires “The elevation of
Odaenathus and Zenobia appeared to reflect new splendor on their country, and
Palmyra, for a while, stood forth the rival of Rome; but the competition was
fatal, and ages of prosperity were sacrificed to a moment of glory.” – Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire “When the sand seems to disappear, not beneath the verdure
of an oasis but beneath an accumulation of marble and worked stones, silence
falls among the travelers…it is then that a man, even the least civilized,
feels himself to be small and, despite himself, meditates on the presence of
that mighty ru…

Synopsis: Seleucus I Nicator forges the Seleucid Empire, and
his descendants spend the next century struggling to preserve his legacy.

“In Asia, after the defeat of Demetrius at Gaza in Syria,
Seleucus, receiving from Ptolemy no more than eight hundred foot soldiers and
about two hundred horse, set out for Babylon.” – Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History, Book XIX